Small- and Medium-sized MNCs, Industrial Clusters and Globalization: The Japanese Experience

Terutomo Ozawa
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Terutomo Ozawa: Colorado State University

Chapter 10 in The Globalization of Multinational Enterprise Activity and Economic Development, 2000, pp 225-248 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract While Japan’ s big enterprises such as Toyota, Toshiba, Matsushita, and Sony are household names throughout the world, the Japanese economy is crowded with a large number of unknown small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). For instance, the latter category of enterprises (defined as those with less than 300 employees) accounted for 95.9 per cent of the total number of establishments in manufacturing, contributing to 51.3 per cent of the total value of shipments and 55.9 per cent of total value-added in 1994 (Small and Medium Business Agency, 1997). SMEs are often described as Kagemusha or ‘shadow samurai’ in Japan. Without them, Japan’ s large business sector would not have developed such formidable competitiveness in the global market. Many industries exhibit close symbiotic relationships between the two sectors.

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Industrial Cluster; Outward Foreign Direct Investment; Japanese Economy; Japanese Experience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
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DOI: 10.1057/9780230599161_10

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